


Traveling Through the Ruins

by Silex



Category: Original Work
Genre: Children, Gen, Monsters, Post-Apocalypse, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 02:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16379348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: He had hunted humans in the past, killed his fair share of them since they were do very dangerous, but then, by accident he ended up taking care of a human child. It was something he had never imagined happening, adult humans being so dangerous, so fierce, he'd never considered that their children would be as small and vulnerable as any other young thing. Now he feels obliged to keep her safe from all the dangers out there.





	Traveling Through the Ruins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



“I’m scared,” Jenny protested, trying to pull him back into the crude lean-to he’d helped her fashion to spend the night in, “Please don’t go Fuzzy.”

She’d named him Fuzzy-Wuzzy after a silly little rhyme she thought was hilarious.

After she’d realized that he wasn’t going to hurt her she’d given him the name and he accepted it because she wasn’t able to understand that the gesture he made with his forepaws was to him what the sound ‘Jenny’ was to her.

He nodded to show that he understood that she wanted him to stay, but continued to sniff the air. He’d caught scent of something that he couldn’t explain to the human child. He could understand her well enough, but he was still learning how to form his growls into noises she could understand. And in this case he didn’t want to say too much in case he was wrong.

“No ’fraid,” he huffed, baring his teeth as he did so, because that was what Jenny did when she was happy, “Mayb fren.”

She looked at him, with no ears to speak of and no spines down her neck, it was hard to tell what she was thinking when she was afraid, other than that she was afraid.

“Fren.” He repeated, pointing to himself then her, “You. Me. Fren.”

“A friend?” her eyes grew wider, wide enough that he expected them to flash orange in the dark. They didn’t of course. Humans couldn’t see in the dark so their eyes didn’t flash any colors even when the light hit them.

It was difficult to imagine that years and years ago, before everything fell apart and left only ruins behind, that his kind had been made by humans like Jenny, but that was what the stories were. Some didn’t believe them, but he did. He had been to the secret places where the remains of the venerated ancestors were, seen with his own three eyes the armor that they had worn in battle. Armor that none of his kind could hope to make. Humans though, even if they couldn’t make it now, could have made it before. The stories were that humans made and destroyed many things and would do so again if given the chance. They were too dangerous to be allowed to live according to the stories.

And he had killed many humans before Jenny.

Adult humans, because until her he’d never seen a child. Just like his kind, they were careful with their children, kept them hidden away in safe places to protect them from bad people and dangerous monsters. That was what Jenny had told him when she told stories about her pack.

“Fren,” he nodded, not quite able to wrap his tongue around the word the way she said it.

“Should I come with you?” Jenny started to take off her sleeping clothes, “I might need to talk to them so they won’t be afraid and try to hurt you.”

The idea made him rasp with amusement. He might not have been like one of the venerated ancestors, but he was more than capable of dealing with a few humans, especially if he came across them in the dark.

It wasn’t humans he smelled though.

It was one of his own kind and he had been lonely for a very long time.

That was part of the reason he had taken Jenny with him when he found her, scared and dirty in the cage in the middle of a human encampment. He had first mistaken her for some sort of livestock with how different she looked from the group of humans she was with, but when he realized that she was intelligent he let her out. It was only several days later, when the human smell failed to wash away from her that he realized what he had done.

And by that point he’d grown too attached to her to kill her.

“Fuzzy,” she wrapped her arms around his neck, careful of the spines there and he fought to keep them down flat, “Be careful. It’s dark out and you might get lost.”

He would never understand why she grabbed him like that. It wasn’t aggressive, at least he didn’t think it was, because she did it when she was happy or frightened.

Perhaps it was a thing young humans did, the way pups would bite and grab in their play. As such he tolerated it, though he didn’t like it.

He shook his head and gently nudged her back to the blankets she slept under, as though their scent might help hide her.

“Please be careful,” she whispered.

“Beh,” he agreed and then padded out into the ruins.

These ruins were mostly overgrown by trees, making them a fine place to stay. There was a wealth of resources in them, and plenty of hiding places.

Hiding places that Jenny refused to go into because she was afraid of the dark and bugs-and-mice, which she claimed that the hiding places were full of.

He’d decided to stay in this particular area because it seemed like the kind of place humans would come to. There was a thin forest of scraggly trees of the kind humans ate the fruit of. His original intent had been to wait in ambush when the fruits grew ripe and the humans came to eat them, but he had changed his plan after he acquired Jenny.

Now he thought that when the humans came, if they were Jenny’s pack, if any of her pack had survived the attack by the pack that had captured her, he would leave her with them and find a different place to hunt.

Walking a meandering path in case whoever he was tracking was tracking him as well, he sought them out.

Sharp smelling grass had been rolled in along a shallow depression.

By a stream the scent of fish lingered in the air, scales clinging to the pebbled shore.

He looked at the paw prints, the depth and span of the claws and his heart skipped a beat.

A female.

They had to be.

He was large for a male, but the tracks were far larger than his own.

That explained why she rolled in the grass, why the scent was muddled. She had left her pack just as he had, and likely for the same reasons.

She wouldn’t want to risk drawing the attention of an existing pack when she planned to start one of her own.

And if she’d smelled him in the area she was likely to be careful until she was sure that he was alone as well.

Climbing to the top of a small mound of rubble he bayed the call of a lone traveler. From the timbre she would know enough about him to gauge him.

In the distance, maybe half a mile away she responded, a deep bay, echoing impossibly, but with the rising note of invitation at the end. She sounded terrifying, which intrigued him.

He hurried to meet her and in his excitement ended up running past her without even knowing it until she emerged, rasping, from a metal tunnel partially hidden by tall reeds. So that was how she had sounded so fierce.

Her tail curled to the side, spines half raised in curiosity, the female yawned agreeably.

She had arrived more recently, but in her mind this was already her territory, he was her guest.

He yawned back, careful not to open his mouth even half as wide, keepings his eyes half closed, head held low.

Their conversation was as much body language as it was sound and it was all a matter of subtleties.

 _A wanderer_ , he huffed, ears held high and focused on her as he shuffled his forepaws in the gesture that he used to introduce himself.

The female snorted agreeably, answering with her gesture and adding, _The hunting here is good._

He didn’t agree, but the way she stood as she said it made it an invitation, that there was game enough for two and maybe a family.

Tail twitching, she came closer and sniffed him, a little longer and more thoroughly than he felt was merited given that they’d only just met.

 _I smell humans_ , she growled, _Are you tracking them?_

He looked away, _They will come, but they’re not here yet._

She sniffed again, _One is._

He swung his head to the side, spines flat against his neck as he pushed her away with his shoulder, _Harmless._

 _Injured? Old? Dying?_ The female growled excitedly, _The smell is strange._

 _Harmless_ , he repeated, pawing at the ground.

She moved so that she was once again facing him full on, a challenge, not to fight, but to explain, _You know where it is._

He tilted his head to the side, admitting that he did know.

Then, smelling of worry so badly that she surely knew, he led her back to where the lean-to was. He stopped her far enough away that the darkness would hide them from Jenny, who was sitting huddled in her blankets, staring off in the direction he’d left in.

 _Small_ , she marveled, _Young?_

 _Very, she still has her first teeth_ , he showed his own fangs to emphasize.

 _You found it here alone?_ She lifted her spines disbelievingly, _With no scent of its pack?_

 _Not here, not alone_ , he looked over his shoulder in the direction that they had come from.

_We should kill it._

He dipped his head the way Jenny did when she had introduced herself to him, _Yeh-yeh._

 _What?_ The female’s spines stood straight up, even though the question came out as a rasp, making it clear that she didn’t appreciate what she assumed was a joke.

He tilted his head towards Jenny and then repeated the sound and gesture.

“Fuzzy? Jenny called out fearfully.

He rasped, not loud enough for Jenny to hear, _She’s harmless._

 _Why do you keep it?_ The female huffed.

It was something that he’d wondered himself, enough so that even if he didn’t have an explanation he had an excuse.

He stretched his forelimbs out and spread his claws wide, _The little thing she’s in, she made that. I carried the branches and helped lift them, but she put them in place. With her paws she can make things and I wonder what she can make as she gets larger and stronger._

The female’s ears swiveled to face him and then towards Jenny as she stood up straighter, hackles raised, _And if it makes something to kill you?_

 _I’ve killed humans before_ , he said, ears lowered in blatantly false modesty, because even if he was trying to convince her that Jenny was harmless, he was also still trying to impress her.

 _This is the first human I’ve seen alive_ , the female shoved past him, walking up so that Jenny could see her.

At first the human child smiled, somehow mistaking the much larger female for him.

Realization dawned less than a heartbeat before the female threw back her head and let out a traveler’s call inches from Jenny’s face.

Jenny screamed and fell backwards in her haste to get away.

 _Why did you do that?_ He snarled, rushing past the female to get to Jenny.

The human child screamed again, not recognizing him at first.

He lay down turning his head to the side in a placating, submissive gesture and wheezing out the sounds that Jenny was familiar with and found comforting, while the female watched it all, rasping delightedly.

_I never imagined a human so small or frightened! If they’re all like this you killing them isn’t so impressive._

Jenny cowered, fortunately not understanding the female’s sounds or gestures, as she tried to hide behind him.

His tail lashed angrily and he kicked out at the female with one of his hindpaws.

Her rasping stopped and she stared.

He let out a frustrated huff, not wanting to give voice to his anger and risk further frightening the human child.

“Fuzzy?” Jenny squeaked, a noise she only made when she was truly afraid.

He nodded and she wrapped her arms around his neck, prompting a growl from the female which only made Jenny hold him tighter.

“Fren,” he shrugged in the direction of the female.

Jenny shook her head, “I don’t like him.”

“Her,” he corrected.

 _I like it_ , the female rattled her spines in approval, _It’s a funny thing._

 _Her_ , he corrected again.

The female rasped.

Jenny whimpered.

He let out a sigh and lay down, looking back and forth between the two.

As first meetings went theirs certainly could have gone better.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so glad that someone asked for this prompt. I saw it and thought that it was adorable.


End file.
